About two years ago, the mediaosphere was all abuzz with wonderings about whether Google was going to buy the New York Times. According to New Yorker writer Ken Auletta, whose new book Googled: The End of the World as We Know It just hit the bookstores, Google was at one point considering such a move.

From an interview with I Want Media:

I Want Media: Google is a media company in terms of generating advertising revenues, not producing content. Is there any indication that Google could enter content production?

Auletta: Google co-founder Larry Page and CEO Eric Schmidt told me that they had discussed buying the New York Times, but in the end decided that if they succeeded it would sabotage their identity as a neutral search engine. The reason they are interested in preserving the New York Times is that Google's search engine depends on good information, and the Times is the world's best newspaper.